- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210
I'm quite certain the problem is the limited upload bandwidth of our current connection. There may be other issues at play as well, but none will really be a factor until we address this issue.
*Server Is Under High Stress*
- Thread starter Mike Bobbitt
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
Throttling isn't the problem. Mike gives a technical description of the problem earlier in the thread.
- Reaction score
- 2,827
- Points
- 940
Because Mike is back in the Maritimes, he was to work through a party-line >GAP said:
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
GAP said:
From what I gather, when Mike was in Ontario, he was running off 2 x 800 Kbps (uplink) DSL lines, which would give a theoretical max of 1.6 Mbps uplink. He's now on a different ISP in Nova Scotia under a rate plan which only provides 1 Mbps uplink. There's your decrease in bandwidth.
The only throttling Eastlink does is to limit the users to the rate plan that they're paying for.
Soooo.....based on Mike's explanation re: the costs....why are we not having an annual fundraiser from all the addicts?
Call it the "09/10 Bandwidth Drive"or something equally innocuous...... ;D
Hmmm...900 per year at $10 per addict....we need 90 addicts willing to enter a 90 step program..............
Call it the "09/10 Bandwidth Drive"or something equally innocuous...... ;D
Hmmm...900 per year at $10 per addict....we need 90 addicts willing to enter a 90 step program..............
- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210
Actually we're only in need of $600/year or 20 new subscribers at $30/year. We've had 2 new ones already, which is good, though we lost one during the same period, so we're "up" one subscriber so far.
- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210
Time for another update...
We lost one more subscriber this week, but received a generous $200 donation from another subscriber, which put us well ahead of the game. (Thanks!)
I've been thinking about this and I feel we're at a bit of a catch 22... It's difficult to commit to supporting a site like this when you're not sure of the results, especially when the current performance is low. With that in mind, I've decided to take the plunge, in the hopes that an increase in site speed will draw out some new subscribers.
As of a few minutes ago, I upgraded our account to include 50% more upload bandwidth. This change should be effective within the next 20-30 minutes, and I'm expecting, will have a noticeable effect on our speed.
I'm hoping that this performance boost may be a deciding factor for some potential subscribers who may still be on the fence. That is, the boost is a practical way of showing how subscribers benefit the site. We have enough money in the bank to cover off about 3 months of the higher speed plan and I'm hoping that a few more will take the plunge to help us stay with it even longer.
Thanks again to all those who have helped support the site!
We lost one more subscriber this week, but received a generous $200 donation from another subscriber, which put us well ahead of the game. (Thanks!)
I've been thinking about this and I feel we're at a bit of a catch 22... It's difficult to commit to supporting a site like this when you're not sure of the results, especially when the current performance is low. With that in mind, I've decided to take the plunge, in the hopes that an increase in site speed will draw out some new subscribers.
As of a few minutes ago, I upgraded our account to include 50% more upload bandwidth. This change should be effective within the next 20-30 minutes, and I'm expecting, will have a noticeable effect on our speed.
I'm hoping that this performance boost may be a deciding factor for some potential subscribers who may still be on the fence. That is, the boost is a practical way of showing how subscribers benefit the site. We have enough money in the bank to cover off about 3 months of the higher speed plan and I'm hoping that a few more will take the plunge to help us stay with it even longer.
Thanks again to all those who have helped support the site!
- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210
I wanted to explain another factor in the site speed, but wanted to keep it somewhat separate from the conversation above, so I'm replying once more.
As a subscriber, all advertising is disabled. The intent of this is to provide a small "thank-you" to those who've helped support the site. You've already shown your commitment, there's no need to badger you for more.
However I've discovered there is an unexpected side-effect. We use a hosted service for our advertising, so when you see an ad, it's not actually from "our server" but from another one out there in the great unknown.
At times, the connection to that advertising server can be slow. What you'll see in these cases is that the page will partially loads, and then pause. If this pause occurs where an ad exists, then this is likely the issue you are seeing. What this means is that even if our pages are loading fast, there may be delays while the ads are fetched. As subscribers do not have to fetch these ads, the only delays they see are our own. (Hopefully these delays have no been reduced.)
Now I am looking in to solutions to this problem... I don't want to give the impression that I'm encouraging this kind of issue to punish regular users. In fact, what I *really* want to do is to get a sense for how widespread the issue really is, and to explain why some people may be seeing delays while others are not.
As an aside, I highly recommend that everyone has a good adblocker installed which would help not only here, but for all sites you visit. I know... as someone selling ad space this is not good business, but I'm more interested in providing a useful service than turning a profit.
At any rate, that's the explanation... if anyone has any questions or feedback I'd be happy to discuss it further.
Cheers
Mike
As a subscriber, all advertising is disabled. The intent of this is to provide a small "thank-you" to those who've helped support the site. You've already shown your commitment, there's no need to badger you for more.
However I've discovered there is an unexpected side-effect. We use a hosted service for our advertising, so when you see an ad, it's not actually from "our server" but from another one out there in the great unknown.
At times, the connection to that advertising server can be slow. What you'll see in these cases is that the page will partially loads, and then pause. If this pause occurs where an ad exists, then this is likely the issue you are seeing. What this means is that even if our pages are loading fast, there may be delays while the ads are fetched. As subscribers do not have to fetch these ads, the only delays they see are our own. (Hopefully these delays have no been reduced.)
Now I am looking in to solutions to this problem... I don't want to give the impression that I'm encouraging this kind of issue to punish regular users. In fact, what I *really* want to do is to get a sense for how widespread the issue really is, and to explain why some people may be seeing delays while others are not.
As an aside, I highly recommend that everyone has a good adblocker installed which would help not only here, but for all sites you visit. I know... as someone selling ad space this is not good business, but I'm more interested in providing a useful service than turning a profit.
At any rate, that's the explanation... if anyone has any questions or feedback I'd be happy to discuss it further.
Cheers
Mike
George Wallace
Army.ca Dinosaur
- Reaction score
- 97
- Points
- 560
Not seeing any increase in speed yet......
- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 210
Mike, correct me if I'm wrong, but whenever someone actually clicks on an ad posted on this site, doesn't that add a penny or two to your account ?
I can't speak for the other subscribers, but most of the ads I see before I log in are usually interesting military-related things that I'd be inclined to look at anyways. For my money, if those ads are a reliable source of revenue, then feel free to not block them from the subscribers' side of things.
PS: site very slow here this evening. I'm having to hit "refresh" quite often just to get a page to load. No biggie though...
I'm tenacious.
I can't speak for the other subscribers, but most of the ads I see before I log in are usually interesting military-related things that I'd be inclined to look at anyways. For my money, if those ads are a reliable source of revenue, then feel free to not block them from the subscribers' side of things.
PS: site very slow here this evening. I'm having to hit "refresh" quite often just to get a page to load. No biggie though...
I'm tenacious.
- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210
I've made some adjustments that may help the speed... here's hoping!
With regards to the advertising, it's sold in blocks of views or clicks, so sometimes clicking helps, sometimes just loading a page helps.
With regards to the advertising, it's sold in blocks of views or clicks, so sometimes clicking helps, sometimes just loading a page helps.
To me it doesn't look like a bandwidth issue, more like a server speed issue (Mysql database overloaded with request) or high server load. It's look like you are on a dedicated server, maybe the time to upgrade to an high end server or do some server optimization or change provider. You can get good server for cheap in 2009.
- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210
Hi hmorneau, thanks for the feedback... but what are you basing it on? The server rarely has a load average that peaks above .8, doesn't use any of the allocated swap space and generally does not have any locked mysql connections. I'm certainly open to feedback but everything I've examined to date tells me the server can't be overloaded as our connection prevents that level of traffic from getting through.
First, for the bandwidth, what I can recommand you if you have a specific bandwidth allocation (exemple 1mbit), it's to monitor your server with snmpd and you can graph your usage with http://odmon.com (it use Cacti and it's free). So the graph will clearly show you if the bandwidth is a problem. Cacti can also monitor other stuff, like server load, cpu usage, mem usage, apache process, mysql, etc. Just look at it.
Second, for the speed issue, you can check on http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=86.25
Also take a look in litespeed
Also try incrasing the number of child process, it sometimes help with forum since it does lots of request.
Also install Zendoptimizer if it's not allready done.
Second, for the speed issue, you can check on http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=86.25
Also take a look in litespeed
Also try incrasing the number of child process, it sometimes help with forum since it does lots of request.
Also install Zendoptimizer if it's not allready done.
- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210
Thanks hmorneau. I've gone over the server itself with a fine toothed comb, it still has processing power to spare. The bandwidth between the server and the router it's connected to would also show as "OK" because the bottleneck is between the router and the rest of the world.
For example, the results of http://www.speedtest.net/ show a dowload speed of ~5Mb/s and an upload speed of ~0.1Mb/s while Army.ca is connected and running. That tells me that there is very little available throughput on the upload pipe, which is where we need it most.
If I unplug Army.ca (sorry guys... it's in the name of science) and re-run the test, I get results of ~5Mb/s and 0.6Mb/s respectively. I've also done some testing on packet latency and inbound is fine, but outbound has some serious delays.
Frankly 0.6Mb/s is low based on what I expected to see there, it should reach a theoretical max of 1.5, though that's never the reality of a cable connection.
For example, the results of http://www.speedtest.net/ show a dowload speed of ~5Mb/s and an upload speed of ~0.1Mb/s while Army.ca is connected and running. That tells me that there is very little available throughput on the upload pipe, which is where we need it most.
If I unplug Army.ca (sorry guys... it's in the name of science) and re-run the test, I get results of ~5Mb/s and 0.6Mb/s respectively. I've also done some testing on packet latency and inbound is fine, but outbound has some serious delays.
Frankly 0.6Mb/s is low based on what I expected to see there, it should reach a theoretical max of 1.5, though that's never the reality of a cable connection.
- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 210
Mike Bobbitt said:
You must have done something right, Mike: it's running a lot faster for me this evening.
- Reaction score
- 198
- Points
- 1,210